Читать книгу Night of the Tiger - Doranna Durgin - Страница 5

Coyote!

Marlee knew it the moment she saw him, human form or not. The man coming down the Sentinel headquarters hallway was a full-blooded shape-shifter—his eyes sharp, his presence full of strength and purpose and charismatic intensity. He stalked directly toward her, clearly on his way from the tactical dispensary, a heavy gear bag over his shoulder and a frown forming at the sight of her.

Marlee ducked hastily into the employee gym—the room where she’d been headed in the first place, here in the sleek, clandestine subfloor levels of Sentinel Brevis Southwest, regional operations for the desert climes. She didn’t want to deal with the coyote’s sharp gaze, his questing nature—the sudden bloom of awareness as he realized who she was.

And he would, because of what he was. What they all were, the full-bloods. Not that it ever showed on the outside, but Marlee Abril Cerrosa knew it in her heart: this man was coyote.

The gym door closed gently behind her, enclosing her in that familiar cool space—weight machines lining the wall, free weights in an extruded corner nook, and a row of cardio options. Brevis took the fitness of its field and support agents seriously.

Of course, Marlee was neither. Not any longer.

Metal crashed from the free-weight nook; a muttered curse followed.

Marlee found him in an instant, sitting on a weight bench in cutoff sweats and no shirt, the smattering of hair on his chest a dark rusty blond to match unruly hair above. Tiger. Bengal tiger.

Irritation tightened her mouth. She’d come here in midmorning because so few others ever worked out at this time; she could count on a solitude free of knowing looks and silent accusations.

And then he stretched, his private disgruntlement turning to a wince as he worked his arm and shoulder, twisting his torso…revealing a splash of scarring.

Marlee’s irritation gave way to guilt. She’d learned to judge the age of such things—to recognize those injuries from the Core D’oìche attack.

The injuries she’d caused.

Arrogance. As if she had such power. As if she’d done more than feed minor pieces of information to the former Atrum Core Prince, Fabron Gausto, or plant a computer virus or two, thinking them to be insignificant and low-level tinkerings.

No, she hadn’t even known. She’d been taken in by the Atrum Core; she’d been used.

Sometimes Marlee thought her ignorance made it even worse.

Oh, hell—the Sentinel had seen her. He didn’t quite release the stretch as he gave her a distracted nod—and then he looked again, sat up a little straighter, seemed a little larger.

And there it was. That which had always terrified her: the tiger, looking back at her.

How the field Sentinels ever blended into outside society at all, she didn’t know. How this man could even try amazed her. The gleam of wild in pale hazel eyes, the subdued brown streaks in rusty blond hair tapered short at his nape to obscure them, the barely quiescent aura of power—it all shouted of his otherness. It was an alluring strength, a charismatic strength…but never a comfortable strength. Not for a moment.

Especially not with his obvious flare of interest.

Heat prickled on Marlee’s cheeks and neck, tingling down her spine; she had a sudden, uncomfortable awareness of every sensitive spot on her body.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say. And then, before he could ask why—before he could figure out why—she gave him a reason…if not the true reason. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“It’s a big room,” he said, and he was still eyeing her. “Until now, not one of my favorite rooms.”

Hell, he was interested.

And Marlee’s body was as treacherous as the rest of her—shifting uncomfortably, so aware of her isolation and her loneliness. Aching to leave before he understood who she was, aching to stay just a moment longer…

“You must be staff?” he said, finally releasing his stretch—only to reveal another slashing scar across one broad pectoral.

“Between assignments,” she managed to respond, understanding now why he was here, and how that was her fault, too. She’d seen it before—that first wave of healing field agents sent out too soon after Core D’oìche—so desperate was the situation here at Southwest Brevis, so thin were their agents on the ground. And so great was the need in the field, where the Atrum Core had wasted no time taking advantage, wreaking subtle chaos in their centuries-long quest for power and pushing all the ancient boundaries of their ageless cold-war battlefield with brevis regions around the world. Core D’oìche had merely been another of that power-hungry faction’s strikes against the shape-shifting Sentinels and their mandate to protect the earth and its people.

And, not ready, the Sentinel field agents had been vulnerable, and so many of them had simply come right back again, newly hurt.

“Hey,” he said, tipping his head just a little, “don’t worry about it. We’ll come back from this—and we’ll beat the bastards while we’re at it. We always have.”

Not always. Marlee panicked then, understanding that he’d misread her—he’d thought that she, too, had somehow been displaced by Core D’oìche. He didn’t realize she had instead been one of the bastards.

But she managed to say, “I’m counting on it,” and didn’t have to fake that truth. It was her only possible redemption, whatever became of her life here. She faced years more of haunting these hallways—simply because she wasn’t someone they would ever dispose of, and she wasn’t someone they trusted to go free.

She could blame her sudden chill on that thought, or she could blame it on this man’s unwavering attention. Either way, she didn’t think when she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, warming herself.

The bracelet slipped along her wrist—the fine metal bracelet that might have been unimaginative jewelry…or might have been just what it was: a monitor. It kept her out of certain areas; it recorded her entry into other areas. It keyed to an alarm that would sound if she put so much as a foot out of this building to breath fresh air. Real air.

His gaze flickered to the bracelet. She knew the exact moment he realized who she was.

Marlee Cerrosa, the traitor. The lightly blooded Sentinel working Southwest Brevis IT support, who had nearly gotten their consul killed, who had helped the hostile Atrum Core prepare for the recent and devastating attack during the night of Core D’oìche.

Marlee Cerrosa, permanent prisoner—no escaping brevis and no escaping herself. No matter that she’d cut her dark hair boy-short to match features gone delicate with strain, or that she’d spent endless hours in the gym, watching her olive complexion turn pale with the lack of sunlight and trying to feel strong and safe amidst a people whose unrelentingly untamed nature turned their lives into secrets.

The Sentinel came to his feet in a surge of energy, hands fisted at his sides, his intensity all turned to anger. Startled, Marlee took a step backward; her heel stubbed over a the leg of a weight machine. She caught the metal frame, steadying herself—lifting her chin as if she could convince either of them that she wasn’t frightened.

It didn’t stop him from coming closer, three long strides that proved there wasn’t a thing wrong with those long legs. “You should be afraid,” he said. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

“Living,” she snapped. “As best I can. Until I can prove myself again.”

He didn’t back down for a moment, standing right there within reach, the recent scars livid and the Core D’oìche scars only minimally less so, these several months later. “What makes you think you can ever do that? After the price we’ve all paid because of you?”

She knew her chin trembled; she hated it. “It wasn’t just me,” she whispered. She wanted to say I never understood. They used me, they made me, they broke me. “I did what I could to fix it.”

“Too late,” he told her, inexorable, and never mind that she’d ultimately saved the life of their consul. “Too damned late.”

Her fingers tightened around the steel frame, but she didn’t take another step back. Wouldn’t. Her newly honed muscles gave way to watery knees—at his nearness, at his presence. The scent of him surrounded her, a combination of sweat and the faintest hint of something woodsy she couldn’t swear wasn’t simply part of the tiger. She made her voice come out, no matter that it lacked strength. “What do you want from me?”

That stopped him—if not in the way she expected. He didn’t step back—not physically, not emotionally. But he took a breath, narrowing his eyes. “You want redemption?” he said, his voice hard with scorn. “Then prove it. Put yourself on the line for it. Earn it.” And then he smiled, ever so slightly, nothing of humor in it at all. “Help me find the mole who’s still setting us up.”